Ask HN: Underemployed and anxious. What would you do?

Recently I've been writing on the topic: http://blog.envoice.in/ultimate-guide-land-freelance-gig-end...

- Polish your freelancing portfolio

- Learn more about the client you are going to pitch to

- Prepare for the meeting

- Learn how to create an estimate

- Close the deal

As a supplementary activity, I'd strongly suggest going to various meetups in the city that meet on a regular basis, either weekly or monthly.

Say you know Rails, go to a Rails meetup. Say you enjoy politics and tech, find a Civic Tech meetup. In NYC, I'm certain there are tons of excellent tech related meetups that provide opportunities to socialize with the community and get to know what's going on. The added benefit is that some of the hosts of the meetups are looking for employees, or some of the members belong to companies that are looking for people.

You might say, "I don't like networking." That's fine, not every tech event is a networking event. Civic Tech meetups for example focus on working on projects in your spare time that benefit citizens. During a meetup you can sit in on a project meeting and potentially contribute if you're interested. So it's a natural way to collaborate with others on a shared goal and to learn. Very different than going to a bar and having to strike up a conversation with another person.

I don't view going to meetups as a direct method to gaining a job, but rather, increasing the likelihood of serendipity. Maybe you'll go one day, and a employee of a company announces they are actively looking for someone. Or maybe you make friends with someone knows someone who is looking for someone. Or maybe you come up with an idea of an interesting side project that could be an excellent way of proving your chops to a potential employer. The idea is that you already know what you know, that applying is hard and hugely competitive, so why not try a bit more of a circuitous route by going through humans first?

And I say this having got my first job in NYC through a friend, my first co-founder through a friend, my first startup through a friend, my first YC interview because of exceptional co-founders who were way smarter than me but I met through friends.. basically it didn't matter that I didn't go to an Ivy League or prestigious program, all that mattered was putting in a ton of effort to build my skills (like yourself) alongside connecting directly with people.

Seconded, NYC is great for tech meetups, there are several everyday. And if you're unemployed it certainly doesn't hurt that they often are catered or at least provide pizza.

If you go to meetups and actually talk to other attendees you will certainly learn a lot, meet people in the industry and open new doors for yourself.

Also, hackathons! You even get free food. :)

The stigma around bootcamps definitely sucks, and I am sorry that you are falling victim to this.

I hired someone out of a bootcamp who turned out to be the best hire I have ever made in my entire 10 year career. Initially I wasn't even aware that this person had been in a bootcamp. I proceeded to interview purely on abilities and grilled 'em on some questions about DOM, JS, CSS etc... (the candidate was applying to be on our frontend team).

First, do not let this weigh you down. 50% of anything you get in life is not whether or not you have the qualifications for it -- but if you believe you're gonna get it. It applies to asking someone out on a date, telling a risky joke, or trying to find a job. It's great you're aware of the stigma associated with bootcamps, but don't let it define who you are.

Second, and this is primarily for the other people in this thread: don't judge a book by it's cover. The aforementioned best hire I've ever made in my life was an individual fresh out of a bootcamp who, prior to that, was essentially a jarhead in the Marine corps. If I was starting something new today and needed someone technical on my team they'd be the first person I would go to. This individual started as a frontend engineer and - almost overnight - was sharing 50% of the workload with myself at every level of the stack, all the way down to configuring kafka/cassandra clusters and building internal microservices.

Finally -- sell your narrative. Ignoring the obvious baseline qualifications a technical person needs, most people are not looking for a technical genius who went to Carnegie Mellon and aced every single class. They're looking for pragmatic engineers who are quick on their feet and can dive deep to the root of an issue to engineer a straightforward solution to the actual problem. Demonstrate this ability and it will go a long way. You say that you're making it pretty far down the path so your cover letters are working. You might just need to change your narrative to flip the minds of those who keep considering you a junior engineer. People want you to help them solve problems -- they want to work with people they can trust -- show them that.

Keep doing what you are doing -- also please send me your resume to mwhalen@farmlogs.com because you sound like a rad person.

thank you for one of the most positive and helpful posts I've read on HN

I suggest you change your strategy:

- Build a MVP of an application you would find useful, try to cover it with unit tests and modern day practices. I think having something on the table will greatly improve your chances. - Find a job somewhere else. I've never lived in the US but at least all my life I had to move to another city, and even to another continent to get the job I've wanted, that wanted me. The city I've lived most of my life I have no chances of getting a job: there are no jobs in my area there.

I know that NY is a great city for a developer, but the life cost and everything tells me that it's a "high level" city, the one you go after you had previous success. Places where life cost is low, there are many students and businesses at early stages are great.

I also suggest you to work for a startup. Perhaps one with many problems and issues at early stage which you would probably need to pull out more than 40h/week, because that will make you improve. I did that at the beginning of my career and it completely changed my life: I moved to a first world country, I've got married, I can make money etc. Those hard experiences make us way stronger. Of course, only do that if your current life allows you to do so: having kids or even trying to maintain a good relationship with others will be hard.

>I know that NY is a great city for a developer,

I don't want to be pedantic, especially considering you admitted you aren't American but...

NY is a state, not a city. :) Easy to get it confused. NY state is huuuuge while NYC is just on the lower east portion of it. NY is 47,126 sq mi, NYC is 304 sq mi.

By "NY" I assume you mean "NYC"?

Have you considered applying for jobs in the boonies of NYC? NJ, Long Island, Upstate? If you are the sort of young person living in NYC I am imagining you to be, the prospect of commuting to the burbs is horror-inducing to you. It is to most of your peers, with whom you are competing; you will have a leg up if you are willing to commute to Poughkeepsie for a year.

This is definitely an avenue worth exploring. My degree is in French literature, so the only employer I could find in the NYC willing to take a chance on me was in Hoboken. After putting in some time there, I was able to find a job in the city.

As someone in that area, I can +1 this for sure. Every young person wants to work in FiDi or Midtown, but I see tons of junior job listings even in the close-in bits of NJ and Long Island that don't get touched because, "who wants to go to Jersey?".

Exactly, do the grunt work. Get a job in the Midwest if you need to, grind it out and get to be mid-level, then be the jobs will be calling you.

Switching to a new industry can be tough... and often landing your first job is the hardest part. As such, I would NOT be choosy at this stage. There's a ton of companies out there that don't have customer-facing software, but desperately need developers. These positions may not be exciting (e.g. improve intranet app, clean up reports, etc) but they're always there, the competition for them is generally lower, and they serve as fantastic proving-grounds for newcomers.

Sorry if these are obvious and you've already gone over them:

- have you tried reaching out to your alumni network or the career development person at the bootcamp?

- what has feedback been about your interviews? if it's "we're looking for someone more senior", ask them what are the traits of a senior person and work towards that

- if you're focused on Javascript, do you know the latest frameworks kids are discussing? Angular/React/Vue? And while it's awesome you picked up Haskell, can you write RxJS?

- in terms of interview prep, you've know the answers to explaining .this, closures, class instantiation, async right? And how are your "tell me about yourself", "time when things were difficult" stories? Confident? Engaging?

I don't think you need to go back to school. Perhaps the market is flooded with bootcamp grads and now it's how do you differentiate yourself. Better portfolio site, stronger Github presence with good readmes. And like thegandhi says, sometimes it's out of your control. Some companies really just want fresh grads with 3.8 GPAs.

Also, take a week off from job hunting or even thinking about the internet. Go out camping, be out in nature, and reset.

I've been in regular communication with a couple career development people via Slack, and saw one during an on-campus event recently. They're supportive, but their advice is mostly "Keep going!"

I should ask what the traits of senior people are—I've had some really nice conversations with interviewers by asking, "If you were in my position, what would you be doing?" Sometimes it seems like they just want me out of their hair after the rejection, which I understand.

Yeah, my bootcamp taught Angular and I taught myself React and built a couple apps with it. Haven't looked at Vue, I should do that. And no, haven't used RxJS—I'll look into that, thanks!

My technical answers have been solid so far. My "time when things were difficult" stories were a little clumsy out the gate—I'm coming from a field where I never, ever got asked questions like that—but I'm getting them together now.

I appreciate your words of advice and support! The advice to take a week off is especially good, and something I should probably put an effort toward. I've been in go-mode unremittingly since June of last year, and keep putting relaxation off because I don't want to miss an opportunity.

> I've been in go-mode unremittingly since June of last year, and keep putting relaxation off because I don't want to miss an opportunity.

That's really admirable! But yeah, take care of your mental health too.

When I mentioned Angular/React/Vue, I'd pick one and specialise, but be aware of the others, too. And yes, work on the "behavioral" questions. In another recent interview thread [0], jonasvp and ryandrake had some good insight worth reading.

"These are standard interview questions that you just have to have a prepared, rehearsed answer for that you can rattle off without thinking. There are tons of these types of "behavioral" questions. Tell me about a project that you worked on that failed. Tell me about a time you had to deal with team conflict. Talk about a struggling project that you had to help turn around. You can get a book full of them. Be ready with canned answers for as many as you can and practice them in front of a mirror." [1]

Ultimately, if you've landed an interview, you're pretty much 80% of the way to getting the job. The rest is just showing you're proficient in what you've written about and that you're a likeable person I'd want to work with day in and day out (the dreaded culture fit).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13874026

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13876602 (specific comment in above thread)

I agree. The bootcamps have a probably done a great job of flooding the market at the low level. It's pretty clear that bootcamps are the new ITT tech. I think a lot these bootcamps are selling false promises and preying on people trying to better themselves.

It sounds like your approach is already very proactive and productive. Don't underestimate the value of persistence. I spent a year teaching myself to code. I was able to get a foot in the door through an internship at a NYC agency. This came after several months of fruitless applications and one freelance gig that ended because I didn't know enough about WordPress. I was dog walking in the meantime. Now I am a software engineer. Truly entry-level positions are (in my experience) hard to find for a new web developer. Once you have your first professional experience, internship or junior position, you will receive more interest from prospective employers. Unfortunately, the lack of entry level positions means that you have to have patience and persistence in the beginning. Believe in yourself. Trust that you made the right commitment. Keep at it. I did little things like buying clothes that I was going to wear when I finally had my first web dev job. I didn't wear those clothes until the first day of my internship. By investing in that future, even in silly, little ways, it helped me to believe that future would be a reality.

If you're in NYC, check out the BoroughJS meetups. I don't know if this will help you find a job but I think it will help you to feel part of the JavaScript community. You are part of that community if you choose to be, even if you don't have a job. People there will (in my experience) take you seriously regardless.

Finally, a word on bootcamps. I've interviewed several candidates who graduated from bootcamps. Some are great. Others are not. I think the attitude generally is that a bootcamp listed on a resume isn't an indication of anything. If this is one of the primary ways you define yourself, I would deemphasize it. Instead, emphasize code you've written (in the form of Github repos, Gists, CodePens, live sites, etc.) and communicate that you think like a programmer, even if you don't have a lot of experience. These are the two things I focus on when interviewing junior candidates.

Thanks for the thoughtful response! I've heard—and believe—that it'll get much easier to move forward after this next big step, but it's hard to feel like I'm just treading water.

I'll definitely check out the BoroughJS meetups, thanks for that.

Also, very much agree that a bootcamp on a resumé isn't an indicator of much—there were a very broad range of attitudes and skill sets at mine, and I think it's getting broader with every incoming cohort.

Most of the junior roles,in tech companies, are filled with new grads or rather resumes from colleges. I would suggest going to career fairs and conferences/meetups. Many recruiters scout here for junior positions. Also, do not be disappointed with rejection. You just need one acceptance :). There are many companies out there. Apply like a bit. Good luck.

Thanks for the advice and the words of support—much appreciated!

edit: To everyone else—thanks for the replies, I really appreciate everyone's feedback. I want to be replying faster, but HN isn't letting me add any more comments. I'll respond as I can!

>Applied to two jobs here in NY, taking my time with cover letters, following up where appropriate, researching the companies, etc.

That's the wrong approach, IMO. The goal of job applications isn't to make the best impression possible, but rather to find companies that are interested in talking to junior engineers.

The right approach is something like make/find a spreadsheet with 500+ tech companies in NY and send out something like 20 applications per day. If you're efficient about things, you can totally send out an application in <3 minutes, so it'll take no more than an hour of grinding per day.

Save the research and application quality for when you've got a warm lead.

>the bootcamp on my resumé isn't a strong guarantor of quality

Drop it from the resume and just put in your freelance work and independent projects, IMO.

As a side note: I almost never hire mid-level.

I hire seniors and high-potential juniors. Many mid-levels are mid-level because they don't have what it takes to become a senior. Those high-potential junior might or might not have it, but this doesn't really matter. If they don't have it, they become the war horses that are very familiar with the stack, and that do most of the implementation work, while the seniors do more the architectural kind of work, and take care of the juniors.

Not hiring juniors that have little experience, but seem to be very intelligent and eager to work, is one of the biggest mistakes you can do in tech hiring.

I would suggest building something small,a website that integrates with Google Maps Api, Twilio, Lob whatever so you can at least show something on your resume when applying.

I was in your position 3 years ago, although not from a bootcamp but came from another country without any plausible experience / projects to show for, so I built a website and its administrative area and talked a lot about it on the interview, how I built it, the problems I encountered and so on. That might help a little bit, asking for NYC salary ( I guess around $60-$70k) withouth anything to show for is a hard decision to take for any employer out there.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I see a resume like yours is that do you have any real experience or just a line claiming your did the bootcamp? Depending in what you learned, do you have a portfolio of released apps and software that you can proudly list? Also have a blog. Not everyone needs these, but given you're starting out new, you need to do all you can to get more credibility and these two things can put you a notch above most other people applying for the same job and at least get you interviews. Once you get there, then it's all you and not so much your portfolio or blog.

Think about the job hunt as an funnel to be optimized. You want more stuff (jobs) out the end of the funnel. To do that, you can:

A) Get more things into the top of the funnel -- fill out more applications.

B) Fix the leaks parts of the funnel -- It sounds like you get stuck at the resume screen. I don't see any quick wins here.

C) Find a new way past the leaky part of the funnel -- Have you tried contacting hiring managers or engineers directly (cold emails, networking events, ...)?

What programing language did you learn? You could contribute to some open source projects to gain a bit of exposure.

The bootcamp focused on JS; I've been dabbling with Python, C#, Elm, and Haskell. That's a great idea; I actually poked into it a bit a couple months ago, but had trouble finding projects with issues that were approachable. Is there a resource for looking up suitable projects, or am I best off going to projects I know about and bouncing from there?

Don't explicitly go looking for open source projects to contribute to. That never worked for me at least.

Instead, let them come to you. Just do whatever coding you'd otherwise do, for fun or pay, and focus on that. But, while doing it, see if you notice something that annoys you about some library.

Any behavior you have to work around, or just a nice to have feature. Or even any time you wonder how a feature of a library you use is implemented (maybe the documentation is vague), jump in and read the source. And now you have an open source project to contribute to, almost as if by accident.

(You could do this for any tool or platform you use too, but libraries are nice for this IMHO because sometimes they're small, and they're in the same programming language you're already used to. Jumping into, say, your operating system can be much more intimidating than into a library you already use in a language you already know that really just does one small specialized thing)

When I was a fresh programmer at age 39 in San Francisco, I found it very difficult to get a job, too. The trick that worked for me was posting my resume on Dice.com and saying "willing to relocate". A recruiter in Washington, DC noticed me. I interviewed remotely, got the job, moved to DC, got some experience, and later moved back to SF. Don't be afraid to do what you gotta do.

If you do consider the relocation route, I recommend trying to pick a city with a fair number of tech jobs and shortage of local candidates. In SF, I was competing against many, many entry level developers. In DC, there weren't that many.

One time, instead of a cover letter, I built a feature I thought should exist for a product the company I was applying for made. It made a big impression on one of the engineers who eventually voted up or down on my getting hired and I got the job. This was my first full-time tech job.

Just a though - if you want to eventually move to games/simulation anyway, why not teach yourself C and program some not entirely trivial 3D graphics demo using OpenGL/Direct3D? This is not easy (both C and the APIs are fairly difficult and obscure) and would give me a lot of confidence in you having chops to be a professional coder. One of the advantages of this task as a "rite of passage" is that it cannot be winged by just copying snippets from tutorials/stackoverflow until stuff works. Plus, for a move to games you'd probably need to do this eventually away.

This is a great idea! Definitely feels outside my current skill set—which has mostly come from working with Unity and C#—but seems like a good, attainable, challenging way to put some work in toward that end. Thanks for the advice!

In addition to old school networking at meet-ups & conferences-- Suggest looking for Bootcamp Alumni on Linkedin.

Give them a ping, ask for a friendly 'fellow alumnus' referral. Would they be open to quick 7-10 minute phone call? Do they know any local companies amenable to Bootcamp talent?

The shared connection of the Bootcamp might yield some interesting opportunities.

talk to a recruiter like teksystems. find out who works for the NY office and send them an introductory email. I had the exact same issue a while ago and this was the solution, I had a job < 2 weeks after first contact. take a short contract gig to beef up your resume. be selective with the opportunities the recruiter brings you, learn your market value

>> bootcamp on my resumé

Remove bootcamp from your resume. Its not for resumes, its primarily for gaining skills. No one will be impressed by Bootcamp. Give list of your projects but don't mention where you developed them. Just say, Self starter/learner. Bootcamp is a negative indicator, imho.

Put your work experience (freelance) on your resume. Use your social network to do a good word for you. Keep going or practice acting, anxiety always give off a negative signal. Don't limit yourself geographically (NY). If nothing works, apply for internship or move to northern europe.

I am not posing the following question in a critical manor, I am genuinely curious. How can moving to Northern Europe from the US benefit one's career? Is it feasible to immediately compete for work against locals as a junior dev? What about senior?

Yes, in the tech-industry there's a very high demand. It's much easier to do this as junior than senior (hard with a family). The benefits are: work experience, international experience, expanding your social network, nearly free university education (germany only). There's also cheap health care and 4-6 weeks holiday. There are many downsides too, as the other commenter said (salary, culture shock and many more). The main benefit is work experience and possible debt-free university degree. If I were American I'd first try other states/Canada first though.

Yeah, I feel Europe cares about the degree more than America does. We're the land of self-reinvention here, whereas Europe generally requires some sort of training/schooling to switch careers.

In tech they're often less strict. Degree is more important here, but it's not impossible to land a job in tech with another background. Also, university education is nearly free in Germany (less than 1000$ a year)

True, tech in general seems much more accepting of different educational backgrounds. And affordable education is a really good point.

That's definately important in France where some important tax cuts depends on your degree.

>> After a brief career in publicity

Any notable achievements from your publicity career you can mention in your resume?

Are there are a lot of people with a similar background to yours (publicity + coding skills)? If not, can you somehow use your publicity career to your advantage?

When not submitting resumes, try contributing to some widely used github projects that interest you. There are recruiters out there that specifically look at commit history for potential applicants, plus it'll help up your skill level.

This may not be financially feasible for you but offer to be an intern for a few months and if accepted, then prove to the potential employers that you are indispensable and then they could hire you on as a full time employee.

How long have you been applying? It's a marathon. Instead of blindly applying to jobs, try to meet people who can introduce you to employers. Warm-calls are always better than cold-calls.

It's been about four months. I've been going through friends and connections too, but they've mostly fizzled out.

How about blogging about things. It is a great way to market yourself. You can post your blog entries on LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Facebook etc. Use relevant hash tags.

I'll second this. When I'm looking at applications, especially at someone without a lot of dev experience, just having a little blog explaining your side projects, even if they aren't super original/complex goes a long way. It lets me see that you're proactive, an independent learner, you can communicate, potentially your sense of humor. A simple web site and/or blog can go a long way.

Edit : wrong page. --'

I totally agree.

The economy never recovered from 2008 but you are likely also competing with low cost remote talent there just are not that many openings compared to the sheer scale of the numbers of people uncounted and pushed out of the economy.

How many jobs have you applied to in total? You mention applying to two jobs in NY, but does that number encapsulate every single company you've reached out to?

You've only applied to two positions?

Two positions a day.

I think you're doing so much right, and I'm sorry you haven't yet achieved the results you're after. In the long run, you will. In the meantime, focus on the process and not the results. Be mindful of the results, but focus on what you can control - the process (your time and your actions). Interviewing is a set of many skills - you get better over time. You're better at it than when you started because you have more experience interviewing.

You need some information on what's not working. There's a kind of funnel:

Phone screen -> at home task/project -> onsite -> offer

Sometimes there are 2 or more phone screens. Sometimes the take home project is after the onsite. Sometimes there are multiple onsite interview. But write out a general funnel in a spreadsheet and track how you do with each company. Each company will be a row. You want to see how far to the right you are getting. You have lots of data at this point - populate the spreadsheet with it.

Why? To see where you're dropping off, and to see how you do with different kinds of roles, industries, and companies in terms of size. Are you applying to the right jobs? Are you applying within 1-4 weeks after the job is posted (rather than being 1 of 100+ applications in the pile because the posting is 4 months old)? If you aren't getting many phone screens, work on your resume format and wording, cover letters, and your digital persona (LinkedIn, blog, etc). Get honest feedback from people you know, and if you still get the same results, hire someone to improve your resume and help you write a cover letter or two that you can mimic for future applications. If you aren't getting many call backs after a phone screen, work on how you're answering questions (your narrative, behavioral answers, technical answers, describing previous work experience, your tone, etc.). Do practice interviews, and practice your answer to questions. If the process seems to stop after the take home project, practice these types of projects on your own. If you aren't getting offers after onsites, that's where you need to focus.

Especially on the phone screen and in person, when people ask if you have any questions, ask them "Do you have any concerns about my abilities or qualifications that would prevent you from selecting me for this position?" Patterns will emerge. You can address their concerns, but only if you know about them. Help communicate to your interviewer who you are and why you're hirable and will do well at the role. With this knowledge, you'll be able to anticipate these concerns and soften them with other interviewers in the future.

Apply to 5-10 jobs a day. Pick 5 if that's more realistic. 5 a day will get you a lot more feedback on what's working and what isn't than 2 a day. Put a little less work into each one if you have to - they should be personalized and good, but they don't have to be perfect.

Reach out to people who gave you a "not now" answer 4-6 months after that happens. Their needs change all the time, and your skills are constantly improving, so at some point it might work out with one.

Start a technical blog. Talk about your side projects, freelance work (if your client is ok with it), algorithms, useful dev tools - anything technical. Posts don't have to be that long or groundbreaking, but this will help you get a job. Put it on your resume, Github profile, LinkedIn, so people know it exists.

Focus on what's most likely to get you what you want, a full time job. C#, Elm, and Haskell are awesome. Focus on one for a day or two if the company you're interviewing for uses them. If you want to, dabble a little for your own learning and enjoyment, but focus your energy on things that will help lead to a full-time job in the short term. You have a lifetime to explore and learn.

Apply to gaming companies if that's what you're passionate about. Especially ones that need the skills you have most strongly now - web development. Possibly for their marketing teams (because of your former experience with publicity).

1. Map the interview process funnel. Figure out where you're dropping off, and focus on improving that area. 2. Ask people what concerns they have with you, and address them. 3. Apply to 5-10 jobs a day. Whatever the number, pick it and do it. You'll get more data which is essential to improve. 4. Reach out to employers who said "Not now" 4-6 months after because their needs may have changed and your skills have increased. 5. Start a technical blog. 6. Dabble a little less in a wide variety of technologies that aren't as applicable to the roles full time jobs you're applying to. Study them once you have it. 7. Make sure to apply to gaming companies if that's what you're passionate about.

You got this. Best of luck!

Thank you so much for this thoughtful post—this is enormously helpful and encouraging.

Try applying for ~100 jobs a day instead of 2.

I've done some mass-applying with things like AngelList, but generally I like to take the time to research a company, write a thoughtful cover letter, etc. It'd be hard to do that 100 times a day, especially if I'm going to do anything else with my day. Do you think quantity is more important than quality?

I don't think you can judge quality until you're actually employed. The best looking jobs on the surface turned out to be some of the worst jobs I've ever worked. There's a lot of similarities between dating and finding a job, heh.

For you, no. Sad truth is a lot of companies are biased against interviewing bootcamp graduates because it's a total crapshoot. Anything you can do to make your resume or application prove your not brain-dead is really going to help.

I totally disagree. (respectfully)

If you're applying to 100 jobs a day, you have no idea what you want to do. There may be 100 'developer' jobs to apply to, but a JavaScript Developer and Java Developer Position are drastically different positions. Pick one and get good at it. You might not be able to apply to 100 jobs a day this way, but I guarantee you will get more interviews this way. Quality, not quantity.